Successful T-Mobile rep confirms in rant that executives' focus is not on customers
Over the last year or so, we've often pointed out many of the issues that T-Mobile customers have faced when dealing with the carrier's reps. For example, several T-Mobile customers complained about being charged for accessories, insurance, a case, or new lines that they didn't request, a practice known as slamming. Other customers were told that they could not purchase the new phone they wanted without having to include some unneeded extras in the transaction. It all came back to reps feeling pressure due to T-Mobile's metrics system.
T-Mobile's reps are scared of failing to meet their performance goals
Used to rate the performance of T-Mobile's reps, the metrics system requires that certain performance goals be met. Last November a T-Mobile rep shared on social media an internal document revealing what the performance goals were for a particular corporate-owned store. One particular entry told T-Mobile reps working in that store to try and sell three accessories for each phone sold.
From left to right, current T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert and his predecessor John Legere. | Image credit-T-Mobile
With the pressure on T-Mobile's in-store sales crew to meet the metrics for the store they work in, you can understand (but not condone) why several have resorted to illegally tacking on unrequested items to a customer's invoice. Digging deeper, we placed the blame for using these metrics squarely on the shoulders of T-Mobile's executive team blaming them for moving their focus from the carrier's customers to the company's stock which just made a new 52-week high at $273.40 this past Monday.
Over the last year, T-Mobile's shares have risen nearly 99% and are up over 44% during January and February 2025 thus far. That has certainly increased the valuation of the shares owned by CEO Mike Sievert. As of November 14, 2024, Sievert owned 318,124 shares of T-Mobile valued at nearly $84 million. Other executives have large holdings in the stock as well.
But we're not the only ones saying that the carrier's focus has shifted from its customers to its high-flying stock. A current T-Mobile rep who started his career back in 2012 has also noticed the same thing. This rep was a decorated salesman and was even flown to other stores to train employees. He won Regional Sales Manager of the Year contests for three consecutive years finishing first in Sales and Operations scoring.
In his Reddit post, he wrote, "I used to love the job. Had fun with my team and peers, and most of the customers." Now, he writes that everything is done to grow shareholder value. He claims that the carrier's executives hate the sales team. As proof, he names several negatives that T-Mobile reps have to deal with. "Reduced commissions, increased f*ckery, incompetent corporate personnel and guidance along with some of the greediest and feckless executives in Corporate America," he says.
"Most of my day is wasted doing pointless tasks that contribute nothing to the customer experience, but rather just busy work like using several different channels to report sales multiple times a day via email, slack, spreadsheets and text/calls/Zoom; all the meanwhile the reporting is live and readily available for higher ups at the tips of their fingerprints 24 hours a day. But they’d rather have us send them an email/slack/spreadsheet/text/etc multiple times a day instead of letting us do our jobs and then doing their jobs…hounding us while we are on the sales floor and off the clock at home, while they sit at home watching Netflix and texting employees. The most incompetent employees have now made their ways into middle management as previous managers fled the company after the Legere years so it’s full of people who failed up and are now just doing things that justify their useless position that creates no value so they can keep their jobs while we get axed."-AnthonyChinaski, Reddit subscriber
From the reps I've personally spoken with over the last few years, it seems that the change in the focus of T-Mobile from being a consumer-oriented firm to one that lives and dies with each tick of the company's stock price started with the departure of former CEO John Legere. The latter turned T-Mobile around from a lagging last-place wireless provider to become the fastest-growing and most innovative of the majors. His departure following the purchase of Sprint is often mentioned by veteran T-Mobile reps as the beginning of the current focus on the company's stock.
This is what T-Mobile needs to do to clear the air
As another post in the same thread points out, T-Mobile had said that the company's culture would not change after the Sprint merger. Instead, "They suddenly seemed to forget that you could get results without beating the living hell out of the field sales teams every hour on the hour. They quickly ignored their Values and Values in Action, while pretending otherwise. They turned a blind eye to the slamming, which started happening at COR locations because every ME was scared of being fired."
This is the main problem affecting T-Mobile today. Reps are scared of not meeting their performance goals and getting fired as a result. So they turn to illegal actions like slamming to increase their metrics.
We've said it before and we will say it again. T-Mobile needs to come up with a better method to compensate reps and make a big deal about it by calling it the next Un-carrier move. It would be the way to honor the carrier's amazing past by combining it with its future. And like the other Un-carrier moves, it could change the industry for the better.
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